164 réponses à ce sujet

[TheRevanchist]

Even if it's more fun?

 

Of course, because playing the game however you want is obviously bad. Games should clearly be "use the best stuff in the game, always no matter what."

[capn233]

In ME1, every mod has a level. You can have up to two mods. There are many different mods. It's up to the player to select the ones that fits the play style and the difficulty. Again, you can make choices that make weapons to become overpowered. You don't have to. But, no, it appears that some players think they have to equip the best mods available, then realize that they became overpowered. Instead of taking a step back some players declare it's the game's fault. I really don't get that logic.

 

I have no experience with the balancing issues in ME3 MP. Therefor I cannot comment on that.

 

I know what is available in ME1.

 

I don't really know why you keep talking about the best available mods.  It doesn't matter what mods you take, if they are similar between pistols, ARs and snipers then snipers are worse.  This was a balance problem with the weapons.

 

If one of the weapons is clearly inferior to the other classes, why should I take it?  This is my point about compelling choices.

 

Seeing as how the discussion is in the Andromeda forum, it stands to reason that any arguments about balanced are in relation to player hopes for that game.  Personally I do not want a weapon system with poor balance such that I have to put in the top tier mods in one class to have similar performance to starter weapons or weapons with bad mods from a different class.

[Sylvius the Mad]

If one of the weapons is clearly inferior to the other classes, why should I take it?

No one can answer that but you. It depends entirely on what your motives are.

[DarthLaxian]

    Let me start by saying I liked the way weapons handled in ME1 with overheating/cooldown, barring the bugs that plagued the system and how it could be exploited. When I played ME2 I found that, with the new ammo mechanic, clip availability is inconsistent at best. Especially evident on higher difficulties there are several times where wave after wave of enemies are sent at the player, yet ammunition is barely available.
    Yes ME1 was game-breaking by allowing the player to shoot constantly without pause, but this could've been improved without reverting to run-of-the-mill shooter mechanics. The reload mechanic is OK as a solution to the issue, but was it really necessary to add ammo for automatic weapons ?

   I thought it made more sense for weapons to have an inbuilt heat-sink that could be vented (reload mechanic), which would preserve the original intended mechanic of overheat/cooldown, instead of disposable heat-sinks which only served as a stand-in for ammunition. It's specifically pointed out in ME1 is that weapons didn't need this anymore, so why do it. In order to not make the game very easy it could've even been a difficult to attain upgrade or come with increased reload times as a downside. On the other side, I do agree that heavy weapons should have some type of ammunition due to their general functionality and destructive power.

   I really hope this can be improved in Andromeda, since it's one of the points where I feel the sequels are inferior to the original Mass Effect.

 

I agree (also I don't have a problem with constant fire either, because you trade off some upgrade-slots for that, so you do less damage per shot for example!)

 

Not vented, but switched out (like a revolver's drum) - so you only run out of cooling if you shoot continuously for minutes - and switched back in (as the drum-rotates) when they've cooled down!

 

Still, yeah...thermal-clips were STUPID (and they would be even more so now as Andromeda-Aliens will not use them (or if they did: their's would be incompatible with ours, so we'd run out during missions!))

[TheRevanchist]

I agree (also I don't have a problem with constant fire either, because you trade off some upgrade-slots for that, so you do less damage per shot for example!)

 

Not vented, but switched out (like a revolver's drum) - so you only run out of cooling if you shoot continuously for minutes - and switched back in (as the drum-rotates) when they've cooled down!

 

Still, yeah...thermal-clips were STUPID (and they would be even more so now as Andromeda-Aliens will not use them (or if they did: their's would be incompatible with ours, so we'd run out during missions!))

 

Of course they will be compatible. The Thermal Clips were obviously such a massive technological upgrade that the races of Andromeda did it ages ago. Where do you think the Reapers/Geth got the idea? They found a derelict Andromeda ship in Dark Space and found Thermal Clips inside and said "Boy howdy, this is much better than being able to shoot without stopping! We need to totally overhaul our stuff right now!"

[Sylvius the Mad]

Still, yeah...thermal-clips were STUPID (and they would be even more so now as Andromeda-Aliens will not use them (or if they did: their's would be incompatible with ours, so we'd run out during missions!))

As long as everyone in Andromeda uses the same clips, we could use them with some sort of adapter.

But even that's implausible. That's like saying that every weapon on Earth uses the same ammo.

[TheRevanchist]

As long as everyone in Andromeda uses the same clips, we could use them with some sort of adapter.

But even that's implausible. That's like saying that every weapon on Earth uses the same ammo.

I suspect similar comparisons to the invention of the Bow. Countless isolated ancient tribes all came up with the same great idea, eventually. I expect this rational to be applied to Thermal Clips.   

[Cyonan]

Of course, because playing the game however you want is obviously bad. Games should clearly be "use the best stuff in the game, always no matter what."

 

The problem with this is that I enjoy games which challenge my skills at both character building and combat, at least on the highest difficulties.

 

If things are better balanced then I can get that but you can still play how you want, because all of the weapons are equally useful in their own ways. If things aren't balanced, I now have to choose between building a good character or getting a challenge in combat, but I can't have both.

 

Seriously, in what world is a developer balancing their own game not a good thing?

[Dean_the_Young]

Just use a hybrid system with cooldown. When you run out of clips because you don't actually care about trigger discipline, the gun reverts to the internal heatsink.

 

They experimented with that back in ME2. The dev- forget who- basically said that what happened was that people would waste their ammo with abandon at the start of the fight, and then spend the rest chipping away from cover.

 

Basically, it was un-fun combat

[TheRevanchist]

They experimented with that back in ME2. The dev- forget who- basically said that what happened was that people would waste their ammo with abandon at the start of the fight, and then spend the rest chipping away from cover.

 

Basically, it was un-fun combat

 

Isn't that up for the player to decide how they handle the fight?

[Dean_the_Young]

Isn't that up for the player to decide how they handle the fight?

 

Sure. It's also up for to a game developer to create rules and mechanics that most people will find fun. Creating dominant strategies that are trivial and tedious isn't.

[TheRevanchist]

Sure. It's also up for to a game developer to create rules and mechanics that most people will find fun. Creating dominant strategies that are trivial and tedious isn't.

Most players want innovation, they want developers to try new things. But of course, "we know what you want better than you do." So here is another boring ammo system like every other shooter. 

[straykat]

Most players want innovation, they want developers to try new things. But of course, "we know what you want better than you do." So here is another boring ammo system like every other shooter. 

 

It doesn't have to be boring. The point of ammo (in games) is strategic.. it can be challenging when you run out and/or need to find where to fill up. But that doesn't apply much to ME. ME3 especially had ammo scattered everywhere.

 

They could basically accomplish the same thing with heating weapons too, but it seems more complicated to balance. With ammo, you can create the same tense situations with the map itself.

[Dean_the_Young]

Most players want innovation, they want developers to try new things. But of course, "we know what you want better than you do." So here is another boring ammo system like every other shooter. 

 

Since they did test the concept with play testers, and people didn't enjoy it, shouldn't it be 'we know what you don't want since you didn't want it'? Or, perhaps, 'I think I know what I want better than the play testers who actually tried it'?

 

'Innovation' doesn't mean 'good', or 'enjoyable,' which are what really matter for games. The reason 'boring ammo systems' pop up in so many games is because they're consistently fun. People like shooting their guns rapidly, as opposed to slowly and seldomly. Shooter games live on pace- slowing pace in favor of a crawl doesn't become 'fun' just because it's 'different.'

 

It doesn't have to be boring. The point of ammo (in games) is strategic.. it can be challenging when you run out and/or need to find where to fill up. But that doesn't apply much to ME. ME3 especially had ammo scattered everywhere.

 

They could basically accomplish the same thing with heating weapons too, but it seems more complicated to balance. With ammo, you can create the same tense situations with the map itself.

 

I think the Cerberus Harrier was one of the best-balanced gun of ME3. High power, but low ammo. You could take down most things in short order, sure, but if you weren't consistently making head shots you'd easily run out each firefight.

 

Compare that to the Phaeston, which had oodles of ammo to spare, but lacked kick and damage.

[Cyonan]

I think the Cerberus Harrier was one of the best-balanced gun of ME3. High power, but low ammo. You could take down most things in short order, sure, but if you weren't consistently making head shots you'd easily run out each firefight.

 

Compare that to the Phaeston, which had oodles of ammo to spare, but lacked kick and damage.

 

I would say the Harrier is one of the worst balanced guns because it was hitting way above its weight level and the game saturates you with so much ammo it barely even mattered anyway.

[straykat]

I was about to agree, but I don't remember using the Harrier now. I know I had it.

 

I'll play ME3 soon though, so I'll check it out.

[Sylvius the Mad]

They experimented with that back in ME2. The dev- forget who- basically said that what happened was that people would waste their ammo with abandon at the start of the fight, and then spend the rest chipping away from cover.

Basically, it was un-fun combat

As opposed to what they actually put in ME2?

ME2's combat, as released, was relentlessly unfun.

What you describe as a failed experiment is how I played ME3. I'd chip away from cover, but with powers instead of shooting. I'd basically never fire a gun. And that was way more fun than ME2's combat.

[LiechockiRJ]

For you.

[capn233]

I would say the Harrier is one of the worst balanced guns because it was hitting way above its weight level and the game saturates you with so much ammo it barely even mattered anyway.

 

Or does it?

 

If you do a sustained-dps to encumbrance ratio for all the guns, Harrier grades out at 29th.  Amusingly, Avenger is one rank higher because of its absurdly low weight.

 

The thing is that the AR class largely has fairly substantial encumbrance relative to what you actually get in other classes, except for some of the pop-guns which are light, but not quite SMG light.  Harrier weighs more than 2.7 times as much as the Hurricane for instance.  You could say that dps and encumbrance aren't the only things, and I would agree.  The Harrier has good accuracy, but it has relatively poor in-cover performance due to the stat oddities, and the ammo capacity isn't great.  In MP ammo isn't all that limiting except on platinum of course.

 

Harrier was the first AR that actually had a prototypical game-AR feel though.  Since encumbrance wasn't terrible, it works ok on a lot of characters.  Of course if you are min-maxing, a whole lot of other guns work well on those classes although some might be a little more difficult to use.  Really the only character I consistently saw it on "in the wild" was TGI though.  If a Human Soldier was running it, then it was probably me and not another player.

[Sylvius the Mad]

For you.

Yes. For me.

Because the powers don't miss, and I didn't need anmo for them.

[Cyonan]

Or does it?

 

If you do a sustained-dps to encumbrance ratio for all the guns, Harrier grades out at 29th.  Amusingly, Avenger is one rank higher because of its absurdly low weight.

 

The thing is that the AR class largely has fairly substantial encumbrance relative to what you actually get in other classes, except for some of the pop-guns which are light, but not quite SMG light.  Harrier weighs more than 2.7 times as much as the Hurricane for instance.  You could say that dps and encumbrance aren't the only things, and I would agree.  The Harrier has good accuracy, but it has relatively poor in-cover performance due to the stat oddities, and the ammo capacity isn't great.  In MP ammo isn't all that limiting except on platinum of course.

 

Harrier was the first AR that actually had a prototypical game-AR feel though.  Since encumbrance wasn't terrible, it works ok on a lot of characters.  Of course if you are min-maxing, a whole lot of other guns work well on those classes although some might be a little more difficult to use.  Really the only character I consistently saw it on "in the wild" was TGI though.  If a Human Soldier was running it, then it was probably me and not another player.

 

I've found there isn't a good objective way to try to scale weight vs DPS, so it's pretty much got to come down to what each person thinks. In a linear scale that I've tried before, low weight basically won out by massively inflating the ratio rather than guns with high damage output. Of course weapons with both low weight and high DPS like the Hurricane put them very high on the list.

 

I'm not sure we should compare it to the Hurricane either because that's arguably even worse. Both weapons enjoy about the same theoretical sustained DPS of ~900, which was a mark previously only available to very heavy weapons.

It'll mostly come down to where you think weapons should be sitting, and the biggest part of the problem is that BioWare allowed for power creep to happen on a massive scale without updating old weapons. So now we've got 2.0+ weight weapons like the N7 Valiant and Black Widow that are being out DPS'd by the Harrier. Even the fan favourite Claymore boasts a smaller sustained DPS than the Harrier does, even though the Claymore does remain a top tier weapon thanks to the massive damage per shot it boasts.

 

Personally I found that even in SP ammo wasn't really all that limited either.

[Tantum Dic Verbo]

It is my dearest wish for ME:A to see a more sensible approach in regards to ammo management, the thermal clips idea was really idiotic from lore perspective.

I'm not concerned about lore--I just want thermal clips available as love interests.

[Sifr]

To be entirely honest, I found the Prothean Rifle and the Lancer with the cooldown mechanic extremely difficult to start using again in ME3, so I pretty much abandoned using them, while I went back to the newer style guns.

 

I know that the cooldown mechanic is somewhat better in terms of the lore, as well as from a technical and theoretical standpoint. But in practice, it's a pain in the neck in ME1 how quickly your guns overheat until you got good heatsink mods by mid-to-late game.

 

Realistically wouldn't gun manufacturers have included those mods as standard from the off? Because the initial and unmodded guns would be a death sentence to anyone issued with them, because they overheat so quickly and often, they're a bit of a liability.

 

So yeah, thermal clips never really bothered me. I prefer them to the cooldown mechanic, even if I do agree it make lesser sense in terms of lore.

[capn233]

I've found there isn't a good objective way to try to scale weight vs DPS, so it's pretty much got to come down to what each person thinks. In a linear scale that I've tried before, low weight basically won out by massively inflating the ratio rather than guns with high damage output. Of course weapons with both low weight and high DPS like the Hurricane put them very high on the list.

 

I'm not sure we should compare it to the Hurricane either because that's arguably even worse. Both weapons enjoy about the same theoretical sustained DPS of ~900, which was a mark previously only available to very heavy weapons.

It'll mostly come down to where you think weapons should be sitting, and the biggest part of the problem is that BioWare allowed for power creep to happen on a massive scale without updating old weapons. So now we've got 2.0+ weight weapons like the N7 Valiant and Black Widow that are being out DPS'd by the Harrier. Even the fan favourite Claymore boasts a smaller sustained DPS than the Harrier does, even though the Claymore does remain a top tier weapon thanks to the massive damage per shot it boasts.

 

Personally I found that even in SP ammo wasn't really all that limited either.

 

It doesn't really matter what the ratio is, unless you make weight nearly unimportant in the calculation.

 

Hurricane was an example just because it has similar DPS, but much lower weight.  The real reason balance is a mess is because they seemed to do weight by class instead of usefulness.

 

You can look instead at the Predator to illustrate the same thing.  Harrier does a little less than twice the dps of the Predator, yet weighs more than 6 times the weight.

 

Alternatively, look at Arc Pistol where you can potentially one-shot most humanoids depending on setup.  It weighs half as much as Harrier.

 

Wraith weighs about 3/4 as much as Harrier, but does nearly the same DPS and can one-shot a lot of units.

 

Valiant weighs less than Harrier (1.0) and it makes sense that it should do less DPS, even if it is more accurate.

 

Black Widow has lower sustained DPS than Harrier, this is true, but the difference is I can slap Phasic on it and one-shot most humanoids on gold and depending on character a lot on Platinum.  Similarly with Claymore, there is one-shot potential.  This is why I included adjusted damage per shot in the weight appropriateness score formula I made.  Doing this makes a lot of the ARs move down relative to pure dps/encumbrance though.

 

Is that a big deal that ARs seem to be pushed lower in rank?  How much do usage patterns indicate power?  How much does anybody really see the Harrier in the wild compared to other guns?  I didn't really see it more commonly than a lot of "mid tier" guns, except on TGI where it was very common.  But infiltrators don't care about weight in the first place, so does that indicate anything about weight appropriateness?  You might see it on the odd adept every once and a while, but how much more often would you see Arc Pistol, Acolyte, Hurricane, Paladin, Wraith, etc?  Looking at the Gold Solo Speedrun thread, Harrier shows up a little bit, but not nearly as much as Arc Pistol or Reegar, Talon, Hurricane, Wraith or Venom.  And when it does show up it is usually on Human Soldier or a class that doesn't care about weight.

 

How much to "weight the weight" in a power formula is an interesting question.  It does affect cooldown on most classes, and we know that very light is certainly beneficial to everybody, as very heavy is detrimental.

[Killroy]

They just need to steal the Overwatch ammo system and justify it with some sort of revolving heatsink system. The traditional ammo system in ME2 and ME3 doesn't work for me(and it didn't work for anyone in the galaxy before BioWare decided to make action games instead of RPGs) and the overheat mechanic in ME3 was stupid(why the hell would heat vent directly into the face of the weapon's user?). Maybe they should make a sci-fi game?